OTTAWA — Two and a half months after she first travelled to Lebanon to bring her two young sons home to Canada — a journey that ultimately led her to be smuggled into Syria and taken into some form of quasi-captivity by al-Qaeda-affiliated militants— Jolly Bimbachi is back home with her family.

Bimbachi arrived at the Ottawa International Airport shortly before 1 a.m. on Thursday morning, where she was greeted by her mother, her daughter, and three sisters.

Having spent more time closer to the Syrian civil war than most, Bimbachi was in surprisingly good spirits when she arrived in Ottawa. She wondered aloud whether she should take a bath before or after spending time with her family; she got excited about Tim Hortons; she joked that her time in Syria was a “vacation” and added that she’s not planning any others. She took pictures with her family and cracked jokes about her lack of luggage.

But as happy a return as it was for Bimbachi, it was still an incomplete one, and it is clear that the absence of her sons in Canada is a point of acute sadness for Bimbachi.

“I know they were super excited to come here, to come back home and be with their cousins, and their grandmother and grandfather, to be back in Canada,” said Bimbachi, early Thursday morning. “It didn’t happen. They got taken back to Lebanon. They were a little sad, but they’re OK.

“My happiest days are when we’re all together,” she said, through tears. “I want to give them the world. I just can’t right now.”

Canadian citizens Jolly Bimbachi (L) and Sean Moore, who were being held by a jihadist-dominated alliance in northwest Syria, give as press conference at the Bab al-Hawa crossing with Turkey on February 5, 2018 after they were released to Turkish authorities. Bimbachi and Moore were held for several weeks by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an alliance dominated by a former Al-Qaeda affiliate. They had crossed into Syria in December 2017 from Lebanon, where Bimbachi was fighting a custody battle for her two sons, she told AFP.OMAR HAJ KADOUR /
AFP/Getty Images

Bimbachi, along with Sean Allen Moore, both of whom are from Chatham, Ont., had been held captive for nearly a month by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an al-Qaeda-affiliated group in Syria, after the pair attempted to smuggle Bimbachi’s two sons, Omar and Abdal-Geniy, out of Lebanon and back to Canada.

Her sons had been in Lebanon with their father Ali Ahmad, Bimbachi’s ex-husband, since May 2015. According to Bimbachi, Ahmad had taken the boys on a vacation to visit family in Lebanon when Bimbachi received a call from the boys’ uncle telling her that they would not be returning to Canada. The boys have been in Lebanon ever since.

In November, Bimbachi travelled to Lebanon, hoping to come to a custody arrangement in the Lebanese court system. When those negotiations broke down, Bimbachi connected with smugglers who, she had hoped, would escort them through Syria and across the Turkish border, where she would be able to get to the Canadian embassy and ultimately home to Ontario.

Those plans went awry, she says, when people connected to the boys’ father began posting on social media that Bimbachi was planning to convert the children to Christianity and offering a cash reward for their return.

“It became dangerous for us to move,” said Bimbachi in an video posted by SITE Intelligence Group. “I don’t know how the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham got involved, but I think it’s a good thing they did. They came and they got us and we spent a few nice nights with my boys before they took them back to Lebanon.”

The specifics of what happened to Bimbachi and Moore during the month of January remain somewhat unclear to her; she’s not certain where the smuggling ended and the captivity began, or who it was that she was being held captive by. As the group was travelling through Syria, her and her sons were “bounced around” from safehouse to safehouse, and eventually handed off to the Syrian Salvation Government.

“Originally we were supposed to drive from Lebanon to the Turkish border,” said Moore, in the same video. “It went south in Lebanon, I just didn’t know it yet. As soon as the walking started I knew something wasn’t right. So we just kept on moving forward until we got here.”

She and Moore were separated for part of the time, Bimbachi said, and while she was put up in safehouses, Moore was held “in a jail.”

“I won’t say that I wasn’t scared,” but added that she was “well taken care of” and never felt like she was in any serious danger.

Moore returned home to Chatham on Wednesday, said Bimbachi.

The two had flown together from Turkey to Toronto before going their separate ways.

Canadian citizen Jolly Bimbachi, who was being held along with compatriot Sean Moore by a jihadist-dominated alliance in northwest Syria, speaks to the press at the Bab al-Hawa crossing with Turkey on February 5, 2018 after they were released to Turkish authorities. Bimbachi and Moore were held for several weeks by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an alliance dominated by a former Al-Qaeda affiliate. They had crossed into Syria in December 2017 from Lebanon, where Bimbachi was fighting a custody battle for her two sons, she told AFP.OMAR HAJ KADOUR /
AFP/Getty Images

Whether what Bimbachi and Moore endured could be classified as a hostage-taking situation is largely a matter of interpretation. Canadian officials have said that they were in constant contact with the pair on WhatsApp and that the pair never expressed serious concern for their safety. But even relatively safe captivity is still captivity, and temporarily losing someone—a daughter, a sister, a mother— exacts an emotional toll.

“Today was the first day I actually smiled,” said Hoda Bimbachi, Jolly’s mother, waiting in the mostly-empty baggage claim area of the Ottawa airport. “I’m so relieved now. I’ve been happy all day. I felt like the whole world wasn’t enough, like it doesn’t fit me.”

Annous, who is studying forensic psychology at Carleton University, had no special insights as to how one reacts when your mother is being held captive in Syria. “You just kind of cope,” she said. “It felt like forever.”

The family struggled to get help here at home, she said. “We contacted the Red Cross, the U.N., the Canadian Embassy. […] We tried with every humanitarian organization we could think of,” said Annous.

“We didn’t really get much help from anybody.”

Despite that, Bimbachi still believes that she will be able to bring her sons back to Canada someday.

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.